The United States and Japan will step up their defence cooperation to deal with the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea as tensions in East Asia remain high, officials from the two allies said on Thursday.

Qld fails to protect prime land: farmers

Farmers say the Queensland government is failing to protect prime agricultural land from mining activities.

Agforce says the state government's cropping land review falls way short in providing much needed assurances that high-quality land will be put beyond the reach of the resource sector.

The Strategic Cropping Land (SCL) Framework will align with regional plans, which the state government says will safeguard prime farming land from incompatible mining activities.

"The new regional plans have a strong focus on resolving land-use conflicts between the agricultural and resource sectors," Planning Minister Jeff Seeney said.

"We believe they can both co-exist and both can flourish."

But Agforce president Ian Burnett says priority agricultural areas identified in the government's regional plan covered less than half of the current cropping area in the Darling Downs and just 40 per cent in Central Queensland.

"Furthermore, the plan's priority land uses do not include improved grazing areas, such as dryland cropping or the water infrastructure essential to operating irrigated agriculture," he said.